Late last year we mentioned an oarfish – an incredibly long, rarely-seen deep ocean species sometimes mistaken for a sea serpent (see image above) – coming ashore on the Californian coast. Now, some six months later, two oarfish have been sighted – and captured on film – beaching themselves at Isla San Francisco, by guests on a cruise boat:
The guests were enjoying a beach party in the afternoon sun, complete with a chest of ice cold Mexican beer. All of sudden, a cry went up from the folks who had elected to saunter down the beach and explore a bit.
“THERE’S A GIANT FISH OVER HERE!”
The guests had spotted something special in the lagoon, a pair of oarfish, each greater than twelve feet in length!
…The two guides manning the beach, Lia Stamatiou and Hannah Hindley, quickly realized what the guests had spotted, and they excitedly called it in to the vessel via radio. In a matter of minutes, guests and crew alike swarmed ashore to catch a view of these near-mythical leviathans. The two fish swam in the shallows of the lagoon, obviously dazed or ill, but still wondrous and beautiful. Guests in kayaks filmed videos of the fish swimming beneath them, and this writer was able get some video of one of them making its way along the bottom under its own power, thanks to a GoPro underwater camera.
Kind of sad to watch these incredible creatures swimming ashore, while being gawked at by humans. One can only wonder at what prompted the beaching. Hopefully not, as I mentioned in my previous post, a harbinger of an impending great earthquake – in Japan, oarfish are known as the ‘Messenger from the Sea God’s Palace’, whose appearance in shallow coastal waters foretells impending earthquakes.
Link: Mysteries of the Deep
Related: 17-Foot Long ‘Sea Serpent’ Dragged From the Ocean Off Los Angeles
